Kismet
by mysticxf
Summary: Kate and Claire have a bonding moment


Lost and its characters belong to JJ Abrams, Bad Robot, and all the other fun people. I'm just borrowing for fun. Kate and Claire have a bonding moment. Post 'Maternity Leave'.

Lost – Kismet

By Mystic

March 10th 2006

Aaron played with her hair as she watched Jack walk along the beach with Ana Lucia. Kate didn't see what Jack found in the other woman. She was pushy, arrogant, stubborn and always looked angry. And she shot people who were about as dangerous as a caged hamster. Kate frowned, her eyes going back down to the boy laying against her legs, smiling up at her. He babbled, spitting on his chin and slapping his belly before giving her a surprised look. As though he'd been telling her a story.

"What's going on in that head of yours," she asked him, tickling his stomach and watching his eyes disappear behind baby fat. Kate picked the rag off her shoulder and wiped at his face as he squirmed. She looked back up in time to see Jack's eyes drop away from her and she frowned.

"What happened between you?" The thick Australian voice asked.

Kate looked up, seeing Claire emerge from the jungle and put her hands on her thighs a moment before making herself comfortable in the grassy spot next to her. Claire put a finger out for her son to grasp and she made a gesture of happy shock when he took it and gave it a squeeze. Kate watched the boy mimic her expression. "What?"

"You and Jack," Claire said, plain and simple. "You went from chummy chummy to, you know, this."

"This?" Kate repeated as Aaron squealed.

Claire shrugged, pulling her finger gently away from the boy and she turned her attention to the woman at her side. "I know we don't talk much, but I'd like to think we could if we wanted to, or needed to."

Managing a smile, Kate felt her cheeks redden slightly. If Claire could come to her to help finding a cure for her baby's illness, she could go to Claire to find some comfort. Kate pressed her lips together. "So where should I start." Her eyes teased the sky. "There was a plane crash…"

Clair laughed.

"We just hit rough spots sometimes," Kate said softly, her thumbs finding comfortable spots within Aaron's chubby fists. "I kissed him."

"That doesn't sound like much of a rough spot to me," Claire responded, her eyebrows dropping.

"I kind of ran off afterwards." Nodding, Claire watched as Kate turned away. "And then I kind of defied his orders."

"He's not the boss of you!" Claire mocked, her stern expression tainted with a smile.

Kate shrugged, feeling like laughing, but not quite finding the willpower too. "He was right though. Told me to stay behind and I didn't and ended up in trouble."

Claire grew serious. "But everything turned out ok."

"Sure, if Jack not talking to me is your definition of ok. If him not trusting me is ok."

"Well, I gotta say, it's turned out quite alright for me," Claire admitted, pointing at Aaron happily playing with Kate's fingers. "You're quite a babysitter." She laughed. "And I'd be helpless against crazed French women without my bodyguard," she gave Kate's shoulder a light shove and waited for her to smile. Kate couldn't help but smile.

"Yeah, you'd be totally defenseless," Kate agreed, watching Claire lean back laughing.

Kate's head came up as Jack passed and she caught a snippet of conversation about getting everyone together, about how they've practically abandoned the caves, how things weren't really as safe as everyone pretends they are. It was the type of conversation they'd normally be having. Had he really filled her spot with Ana?

"She can't replace you," Claire said, as though reading her thoughts. "I mean, how could she? Runs around with her pointy sticks. Who does she think she is? Buffy."

"Who?" Kate asked curiously.

"Buffy. Vampire Slayer. There was a show… but I'm guessing you weren't too into television while on the run."

Kate smiled sheepishly and shook her head. "Never into television at all. Had too many chores around the house."

"Chores. I knew it!" Lowering her eyebrows, Kate looked back at Aaron. "You were a goody goody as a kid weren't you."

Aaron squealed happily when Kate laughed. "I wasn't a goody goody, I just did what my mom and step… dad told me to do." She glanced at Claire and pulled the smile back on her face, not realizing it had faded mid-sentence. It hadn't been lost on Claire, she saw, but the other woman didn't question it, just turned back to Ana Lucia.

"I say you go over there and yank him away, tell him you've got some emergency. Tell him you hurt yourself. He's a sucker for that kind of stuff." Claire nodded to Kate.

Kate shook her head. "No, I think he just needs to cool off. Baby steps." She touched Aaron's nose and he closed his eyes and laughed, his bare gums shining in the sun.

"I bet, if we're stuck here forever, you and Jack get one of your own." Claire watched Kate's head come up, the shocked expression she wore and she laughed. "Seriously Kate, you and Jack, it's like kismet."

"I don't believe in that kind of stuff," Kate told her absently, wiping at more spit on Aaron's chin.

Claire thrust out her bottom lip and raised her eyes, "Sure you don't."

"Next you'll be telling me this plane was meant to crash so that Jack and I would meet."

"You never know."

"What if this plane crashed so Jack could meet Ana Lucia?" Kate watched a look of horror pass across Claire's face and she nodded slowly. "If you believe in kismet, that could be possible too."

"But, no, I mean, I sit on the beach with Aaron, I get to watch everyone, see how they interact. Jack's a different person with Ana, he doesn't that that 'I like you' vibe about him."

"The 'I like you' vibe?" Kate laughed. She tickled Aaron and snorted, watching his eyebrows furrow in contemplation.

"It's totally different, the way he is with her and the way he is with you," Claire said, determined. "Trust me, kismet."

"You're just trying to make me feel better."

Claire shook her head, but grinned. Kate watched her a moment before her eyes drifted to Aaron, who was making grabs at her and she pulled him up, embracing him gently. She sighed, feeling the ocean breeze on her hot jeans as the boy started to drift to sleep against her shoulder. Kate looked up again, saw Jack continuing down the beach with Ana and she noticed, all of a sudden, the distance between them.

Finis


End file.
